Still Pour | Taylor Dwight

The Still Pour Crew has been on a filming push for the last 5 months. As one of my co workers put it, “these guys came out of nowhere.” That’s not true. No one can come out of nowhere. They had to come from somewhere? They had to exist all along. In the intro of this video alone, clearly you can see that Taylor has his stall game on LOCK. This isn’t something a rider picks up in a matter of months. This is something that takes a long time to perfect. He had to go out there and practice everyday. I even heard a rumor that while Taylor was perfecting his stalls, his friends would place a bed of nails on the ground beneath him. It was intentionally designed so he wouldn’t spend all of his efforts having to buy yet another set of tubes punctured by a bed of nails. That’s motivation right there. At first they didn’t start riding in that extreme of an environment. They tried the old, “the ground is lava” approach first. But as we and Taylor know, the ground was not lava. So as much as he would try to visualize that the ground was in fact lava, in the back of his mind Taylor knew all along that the ground was indeed not lava. Now as for the bed of nails … you can actually touch and see a bed of nails… and that’s not fun. I heard Ramon didn’t use just plain ol’ nails… he used rusted nails … that he found at a desolate construction site. That way if Taylor did fall, not only would he need new tubes but he would also need a tetanus shot. Nothing is worse than falling on a bed of rusted nails, only to wind up getting stuck with a needle shortly thereafter. Now THAT is real motivation. It really got me thinking on how to properly motivate a person. I sat down and compiled a list of the different ways we as a society already motivate individuals….

Positive Reinforcement – This is a normal one. It usually consists of people telling you up lifting shit like…

“You can do it!”

“I believe in you!”

“You’re the best around! No one is ever gonna keep you down!”

“You got this…even though we all have been at this spot trying to get this clip for the last 4 hours.”

Negative Reinforcement – This uses the opposite approach and is also known as hating. These statements consist of negative shit like…

“Dude you are never going to get this… just give up already.”

“Weak bro.”

“You’re okay, but you are never going to be as good as JBALL.”

“The only reason you are sponsored is because you created your own brand and pro’d yourself.”

Kidnapping – Sometime in order to motivate we need someone to realize what they might lose if they don’t comply to our demands. There are some flaws with kidnapping really… the main one is that no one ever follows the rules… for example…

“Do not contact the police or the girl dies.” Even with the threat of that magnitude they always contact the police! Every kidnapper always insists that you DO NOT contact the police… every single one, but no one ever listens. It’s really frustrating as a kidnapper when the first thing you tell people NOT TO DO they ignore.

“Come alone.” They never come alone. Jesus, this rule is easier than the first rule. How hard is it to come alone? 90% of your day you are alone. So why they hell is it so hard to be alone that day? It’s almost as if you don’t value the life of the person we kidnapped at all.

Fear of Certain Death – This is actually the most effective way to motivate someone. No one wants to die and the idea that they might actually die scares them into doing anything you want them to do. Think about the previous idea of kidnapping someone. The first step is to kidnap them. This usually involves pointing a gun at someone and telling them to come with you or you are going to kill them. Then you proceed to take them to a secluded place where killing them and disposing of the body becomes easier. When a kidnapper firsts grabs you, you’re either at home or some public place where someone might see them. In this case, if shot you might get help quick enough to survive. Instead however, we opt for a secluded place where no one can hear us scream. This is all in the hopes that it will all be okay. Governments for example, always use the fear of certain death. It’s how they talk us into going to war, raising taxes, or even voting for a President. It’s very effective if you think about it. No one can think clearly when they are under the impression that they are going to die.

Fear – Earlier we talked about the fear of death, but there is also just plain ol’ fear itself to motivate. That is why we wake up and go to work everyday when we hate our jobs. We fear being broke, homeless, not being able to pay our bills, starvation, etc. Majority of the time as human beings, we do things because we are fearful of the consequences if we DO NOT do them. The fear of not knowing keeps most people right where they are in life. We work jobs we hate to pay for things we don’t need. But the fear of not having those things is a weight that sits on our chests. I think that’s why we like apocalyptic movies and post-apocalyptic books so much. Because it’s a fresh start. A way to rewrite how the world turns. In apocalyptic situations the people never work a job. They are only focused on surviving by any means necessary. They take what they need. That idea of just taking what you need is very exhilarating. It’s way better than working hard to just scrape by.

Competition – Another great motivator is competition. People love to compete and prove that they are better than others. We do it everyday. We brag about how big our house is, how nice the car we drive is, how much better fixed gear’s are, how mush hotter our girlfriend’s are, and so on. We brag about being more successful. We brag that our company is better than your company. Or we just simply match people against each other in some form of an event. Like a race or trick comp. Some people get motivated in the heat of competition. They would rather get broke off and go home hurting than lose. People train for competitions. Nothing says I am better than you than some form of medal or trophy. We are a society that puts people in competition for no reason. Like the Academy Awards for example. The Academy Awards honor people for the ability to pretend to be someone else. If you really think about it, it’s kinda weird. Why? Because there is no basis for most of the characters that these actors play in movies. Forrest Gump was not a real person and did not live the life shown in the movie. So how can we say that Tom Hanks played an amazing character? Has anyone else played Forrest Gump in order for us to compare to Tom Hanks? No. So how can we really know that he did an amazing job if he’s the only person to ever do that job? Everything is always good until you see another version that’s better. Or the opposite. For example, when Hollywood makes a remake of a great movie most people tend to like the original better. We know we enjoy the film more because we have something to compare it to. It’s how FGFS and fixed gear edits work. We know we like one edit better than another because we have watched them both. So theoretically, all of the videos we post are in competition with one another because we have something to compare it to.

Love – By far this is the most powerful of all motivations. If we love doing something and it makes us happy, we put a lot of hard work into it. This is what usually separates the successful from the non. We all need a reason to get up in the morning and do what we do. If we love what we do, that is all the reason we need. At the end of it all… if we love what we do, none of the above can motivate us to do it differently.